By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Authorities in China have removed Apple products from a government procurement list because of fears that they are susceptible to electronic espionage by the United States. Citing “government officials familiar with the matter”, Bloomberg News said on Wednesday that 10 Apple products have been removed from the list, including the iPad and iPad Mini, as well as MacBook Air and MacBook Pro products —though interestingly the inventory of removed items does not include Apple smartphone products. The procurement list is produced several times a year by China’s Ministry of Finance and the National Commission for Development and Reform. It specifies the types of products that can be purchased with public funds by all central departments of the Communist Party of China, as well as by all state and local government ministries. The surprise removal of Apple products from the list follows a report aired by Beijing’s state-owned China Central Television in July, which claimed that security weaknesses in Apple software could cause the theft of sensitive state secrets. Apple vigorously rejected the claims made in the television report. The action by the Chinese government is the latest move in a tit-for-tat cyberespionage war between Washington and Beijing, which began in 2013, when American defector Edward Snowden began leaking US intelligence secrets. In June of that year, it was revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been engaged in protracted offensive cyberespionage operations against China for nearly 15 years. Almost a year later, the US Department of Justice charged a group of Chinese military officers with stealing American trade secrets through cyberespionage. Apple is not the first American technology firm to be hit with removals of its products from the Chinese government’s procurement list. Read more of this post